AI + Marketing = The Future Is Now

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Will Rogers

Mr. Rogers was born in the beginning of the 20th century, but his wise statement stays valid even now. The business ambiance is constantly changing and in order for your business to stay relevant and profitable, you must navigate adequately throughout the changes and use it in order to improve your parameters and profits.

Today we will focus on the artificial intelligence and its implications in marketing, business, and personalization. Though the theme is wide as the sky, there are some basic directions where I would like to focus your attention to.

And, as in the majority of articles, I will start with a definition (in order to set the idea that I am resourceful and agile and know what I am talking about). According to Britannica, “Artificial intelligence (AI), the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience.”

I believe that everybody’s heard of the first big milestone in the development of AI, the chess battle between IBM’s Deep Blue machine and Garry Kasparov in 1997. Twenty years later, AI’s achievements are not limited to mastering chess but implemented in a wide area of mechanisms everyone could use. And, to refer to Will Rogers again, in order for your business to not be ran over, there are a few of AI’s implications in today’s business world, that could be useful in your business strategy.

AI based reporting and NLG – leave the boring reports aside

Do you ever felt bored to death while making reports? AI could make your work life less monotonous sooner than you think. The AI based reporting is correlated with a mechanism called Natural language generation (NLG). It represents a software process that magically turns data into text that could be easily understood and assimilated. It is a fact that NLG cannot produce text on its own, but its implication in long (and boring) reports is priceless. Need an example? Check this out:

“The consensus estimate remains unchanged over the past month, but it has decreased from three months ago when it was 39 cents. For the fiscal year, analysts are expecting earnings of $1.68 per share. Revenue is projected to be 2% above the year-earlier total of $369.4 million at $378.4 million for the quarter. For the year, revenue is projected to roll in at $1.56 billion.”

This quote is a part of a Forbes’ earning report made with Quill NLG platform. Besides the fact that AI is expected to manifest opinion to be similar to human intelligence, this software mechanism as closest to AI’s perfect version could be used to put off the boring reporting part from poor clerks (which could be seen as a good and bad thing at the same time. Offtopic – dear clerks, there are a lot of versions of funny software that could predict whether your job will be done by robots in the future, like https://willrobotstakemyjob.com/ so you can check it out and react while you have time). According to Gartner, by 2018 one in every five articles will be machine authored, so all in all, you can delegate the boring stuff to robots and leave the creative niche in human hands.

Smart content – recommendations and tuned ads – How do they know me so well?

What is the mechanism of search services? Based on what you have previously searched, AI builds databases that represent some trees of searches and interrelations between them. When you have searched for plane tickets it is highly likely that you will need some other vacation items or related services (rent-a-car, transfers, hotel, etc.). This way recommendation systems are built – based on data, probability mechanism, and search trees. Netflix’ recommendation system also has studied the similarity in tastes and preferences. When you have watched a show, the system has recorded your preferences and suggests you other shows based on other people’s preferences. That is the AI element – it recommends suggestions based on big data gathered.

Siri, Cortana, Google now – the harbingers of a new technology era

Stepping out the tactile technology era, we are entering the virtual voice commanded reality, mastered now by the virtual assistants. As new as these may sound, the voice technology leads its beginning in 1961 when an IBM created machine managed to recognize 16 spoken words and the digits from 0 to 9. More than 50 years later, we have the virtual assistants, like Siri, Cortana, and Google now. In the blink of an eye, they will connect the assistants to the Internet of things and we will use the assistants to perform technology operations within our homes, cars, and offices (Siri, switch on the coffee machine).

And, while all this may not sound very business-oriented at the moment, think about their tactile version – chatbots. Customer service is an e-commerce branch that should not be neglected in order to provide the best client experience, and chatbots use a technology similar to a virtual assistant. It could be used to limit or cut entirely the expenses for human provided customer service. It is widely used in B2C services, like Domino’s pizza, Whole foods, Pizza Hut, etc.

Machine learning, and some more examples of how to stay relevant (or creepy)

Machine learning is the mechanism that stays behind the predictions we already talked about. Machine learning mechanisms build algorithms that analyze big data and predict an outcome within an acceptable range. How exactly is this happening? As we have already discussed, every action on the Internet leaves a digital trail, and there are logical mechanisms that could predict your future acts based on your previous ones. Here’s an example: you read articles for weight loss and you order clothes in XXL size. There is a probability that you want to lose weight, therefore it is highly likely that you will see ads for weight loss products while you surf on the Internet.

Here’s another example: I was pretty surprised recently because when opening Facebook, I kept seeing dating sites ads. I have never visited any dating sites, and based on my online behavior I didn’t have any idea why this was happening to me (of course, I like Chris Hemsworth pictures, but who doesn’t, right?). Luckily, there is an option “Why am I seeing this” on Facebook ads so I sometimes get my answers. It was because my relationship status wasn’t set on Facebook, therefore according to the mechanism there was a probability that I am single, and here dating sites come to help.

And, the last example, probably my favorite one, because of its brutality. Imagine this: a big American commerce store, an angry father comes in and wants to talk with the manager, pissed off from the fact that his 13-year old daughter keeps receiving advertising emails inviting her to buy baby clothing and stuff. His little girl? Why is this happening? He got an apology from the store managers and got home. Nothing interesting here, up to this moment, right? Two weeks later, the dad received a call from the store manager, and the father gave him an update on the case (and an apology). It turns out his daughter is due in August. How the store chain knew it before her family? She was looking for some vitamins, like folic acid, and according to the predictive mechanism, pregnant women take these supplements for the babies, so, that was why the ads for diapers and baby clothes started. Kind of creepy, right?

Dynamic pricing – discriminative threat or new business niche?

As we stated in this post already, you must be flexible when doing business in order not to survive but succeed. There are a lot of big players that bravely affirm that they offer the lowest prices and whether you find the same product on a lower price, they will return your money. How do they do it? Using AI dynamic pricing offers. While giving different prices depending on a variety of factors (mostly demand, supply, and in-stock units) is not a new concept for sales and business, here the AI mechanism makes it much simpler while detecting and combining the factors and determining the new price according to the results. The main aim of dynamic pricing is to increase revenues and profits and to gain permanent and loyal customer basis. And the main aim of the AI mechanism is to adopt the processes that could be computed. Win-win for your business!

Dynamic pricing opened a new business niche. There are companies that specialize in data mining related to pricing, and one of the biggest in the market was acquired by Home Depot (so, a lot of potential here, take notes).

In resume – basic implications of predictive analytics?

Aside from what we already mentioned, why is predictive analytics important? There are some implications of this technology that are making it socially, politically, and financially crucial.

Prevention of cyber crimes – As cyber security became a growing concern, its prevention includes examination in real-time in order to spot abnormalities that could indicate fraud potential, newly discovered system vulnerabilities and threats.

Improving operations – Predictions and strategy aren’t new things, having in mind the countless number of strategies on a political and up-national level that are already written. The new thing is that this could already be done without human intervention, it can be based on much bigger data massive, and therefore be much more punctual. Robots nailed it again (sorry, humans!)

So, after this virtual tour in AI-based products in digital marketing, you can be sure that the future is now. And, in order to become (and stay) successful in business you must adapt according to the situation and use it to your advantage. Since you are here, you already know that Adtailor’s product is a similar technological solution that can help you get to know your clients better and to offer them solutions tailored according to their needs. You can use Adtailor’s info to set up a dynamic pricing system, or predictive mechanisms for next purchases according to the parameters you can offer you info about. And, if you’re still in doubt, let us show you what we got for a free trial month!